Featuring: Human Torch
Release: February 11, 1964
Cover: May 1964
12 cents
Deftly written by: Stan Lee
Dazzlingly drawn by: Jack Kirby
Dramatically inked by: Dick Ayers
Distinctively lettered by: S. Rosen
14 pages
Been a little while since Kirby has deigned to draw a Human Torch story. I assume we owe his presence to the guest appearance of Iceman, just like a Captain America crossover motivated his last visit.
Mr. Fantastic notes the X-Men are hard to contact because nobody knows their identities. Iron Man was able to contact them just fine, and they all have access to a government-provided superhero communications network.
Iceman complains that everybody else always beats him to asking Jean out; he seems to feel as though it’s his turn for a date. You don’t get turns. Being the only girl on the team doesn’t obligate her to date everybody. However, this attitude is also a marked contrast from X-Men #1 where he was the one guy on the team who claimed he didn’t care about girls. Wonder what’s changed.
Iceman looks very different in this comic than he does in the X-Men comics, even though Kirby is drawing both. This almost certainly comes down to the inkers, but I’m not sure in which direction. Perhaps the rough snowiness of his look in X-Men is added entirely by Reinman. Or perhaps it’s a sign Kirby is doing pretty rough work on this comic and leaning heavily on Ayers. I could believe either.
Is it odd the Iceman is warmer in his ice form than not? It probably makes sense, but it threw me. Honestly, I would have guessed he just didn’t get cold.
We get again what I’ve mentioned before is perhaps my least favorite superhero trope. When the hero just happens to be at the scene of the crime. In this case, two superheroes happen to be on the exact boat ride the Barracuda chooses to attack. Just lazy writing.
It allows for the opportunity for Johnny’s girlfriend to be a damsel in distress. Also not the finest trope of superhero comics.
But a Human Torch/Iceman is a good team-up idea. Fire and ice.
This comic was published between X-Men #4 and X-Men #5. Chronologically, there is no time gap between those issues where this story can take place. There is a time jump in the middle of issue 5 where this story fits. Or it could take place after issue 5. Either way, that chronological concern is why we read X-Men #5 before this.
Rating: ★★½, 49/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Human Torch vol. 2. You can also find it in The Human Torch & The Thing: Strange Tales – The Complete Collection. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Mr. Fantastic
- Human Torch/Johnny Storm
- Invisible Girl
- Thing
- Angel/Warren Worthington III
- Iceman/Bobby Drake
- Marvel Girl
- Professor X
- Doris Evans
- Barracuda/Cap’n Barracuda
Story notes:
- Clarifies meaning of mutants: the X-Men were born with their powers.
- Johnny and Doris have date, boat ride around Manhattan, by Gotham Boat Line.
- Piracy on the Hudson River.
#189 story in reading order
Next: Strange Tales #120, Story B
Previous: X-Men #5
